


everything's magic.

by katarama



Series: Salem Academy of Sorcery [2]
Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Magic, Character Study, M/M, Magic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-10-24
Updated: 2015-10-24
Packaged: 2018-04-27 22:58:21
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,948
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5068111
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/katarama/pseuds/katarama
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>“What does your magic feel like?” Stiles asks them both.</p><p>“Quiet.  Not like yours,” Scott teases.  </p><p>Stiles turns to Derek, but Derek’s head is blank.  He’s had magic for all his life, but he has no idea how to answer Stiles’ question.  It should be easy, especially having a family that’s comfortable talking about magic and having discussions like this.  But it’s hard for Derek to put his finger on how to describe something that’s so innate, so central to his daily life.</p><p>“I’ve never thought about it,” he admits.  But he knows he will be, now.</p>
            </blockquote>





	everything's magic.

**Author's Note:**

> Here's some more McHaleinski from our American magical school AU! [The collection that this fic is posted to](http://archiveofourown.org/collections/SAS) will be the place to check in on all content created for this 'verse, including fic by my collaborator. There's an [Allison/Jackson/Lydia tumblr fic](http://kateslaura.tumblr.com/post/131390265719/so-my-girlfriend-sleepy-skittles-and-i-have-our) that they wrote that should be cross-posted there before too long.
> 
> Anyway, this time you get a taste for what magic is like in this 'verse. Enjoy!

Stiles is never vocal about making plans to go study with Allison.  Derek thinks part of it is probably down to shame, Stiles hating to let everyone know he needs help.  The other part of it, Derek is sure, is that he knows how much it sets Derek on edge when he spends time with her.

“Allison is an Argent, but Deaton let her in for a reason,” Scott always reminds Derek.  It’s not a compelling argument for Derek, because Deaton let Kate go to school there for two whole years.  Scott has a lot more trust in Allison than Derek ever could, because Scott may have grown up with magic, but he doesn’t understand like Derek does what the Argent family represents.  Scott sees Allison, alive and walking around with magic (a terrible choice in wives on Gerard’s part, everyone whispers) and sees it as a truce, as the Argent family becoming more accepting, less icy and indiscriminatory in wiping out magic.  Derek knows too many years of history, too many names on the wall of ancestors that were killed by Argents, to believe they’d change their colors overnight.

“It helps him to have someone who’s just as new to using their magic as he is,” Scott says, softer, and that’s where he always gets Derek.  Because Derek has heard stories, the same as everyone else has, about what happens to an Argent with magic, one too young to be indoctrinated, too young to have control.  Derek wouldn’t wish dampening bracelets on his worst enemy, let alone Allison; the idea of being cut off from his magic makes his skin crawl, and the fact that that was forced on Allison for years makes even Derek sympathetic.

Derek knows Scott is right, though.  Scott usually is, when it comes to Stiles, because the two of them get each other in a way Derek can’t touch.  Allison is still figuring things out, too, and that, ironically, makes her feel safe to Stiles.  Derek can’t say he  _likes_  it.  

But he understands, and he knows it’s not ultimately his decision.  

 

* * *

 

 

Stiles loves asking questions about magic.

Sometimes they’re easy questions, things Derek and Scott can tell him without a second thought.  Derek knows a lot about who runs the Salem Academy of Sorcery and about wizarding government, since Peter’s dean of Eberhardt and his mom’s on the council.  Scott takes the question about bringing people back from the dead (no, not possible) and lands Derek with the question about where magic comes from.

“No one knows,” Derek says, which is more or less true.  When Stiles, unsurprisingly, doesn’t accept that as a satisfactory answer, Scott takes him to the library.  They find whole volumes dedicated to the philosophy of magic, where magic came from and what its nature is.  Stiles flips through science journal articles that try to break it down and explain what magic is only to come up empty.

Some things Derek and Scott both have to shrug at or admit they don’t know yet, because it’s magic too advanced for where they are, even with their additional background knowledge.  

The first question that  _truly_  stumps Derek comes while they’re on a date.

It’s not  _really_  a date, because they’re all too tired to skip off-campus.  But they’d designated it as a date weekend, and it’s Derek’s turn to cover things, so Derek grabs his extra set of blankets for his bed and buys snacks from the cafeteria.  They sit out together on the back lawn of the school, at the top of the slope leading down to the track.  Winter is clinging to the campus, still, and it’s a bit chilly outside, so Derek casts a simple warming charm around the blankets, running his hands along the edges.  Scott doesn’t pay a bit of attention to it, but Stiles watches him carefully, holding back his question until they’re settled on the blanket together.

“What does your magic feel like?” he asks them both.

“Quiet.  Not like yours,” Scott teases.  

Stiles turns to Derek, but Derek’s head is blank.  He’s had magic for all his life, but he has no idea how to answer Stiles’ question.  It should be easy, especially having a family that’s comfortable talking about magic and having discussions like this.  But it’s hard for Derek to put his finger on how to describe something that’s so innate, so central to his daily life.

“I’ve never thought about it,” he admits.  But he knows he will be, now.

 

* * *

 

 

Observing Stiles’ magic isn’t difficult.  Even if Stiles could control it, it’s the kind of magic that suits Stiles’ personality startlingly well; it’s moody and loud.  The fact that Stiles doesn’t know what to do with it means that Derek gets the front row seat for the disaster that is Stiles, his soupy mess of feelings and magic that only seem to feed off each other.  On days when Stiles is stressed and nervous, all Derek has to do is walk into his room to know; Jackson spread around photos of Stiles’ bed on the ceiling because Stiles was a nervous wreck the morning of his transfiguration midterm.  Stiles’ magic responds to what he feels, and Stiles tends to have strong feelings.

Stiles talks about magic like it has its own life, like his magic is just  _acting_  without input from him.  He talks about it like it’s practically vibrating inside him, packed in tight until he feels too much for it to stay inside.

And it does make sense to Derek, objectively.  Stiles’ magic is big, good for spells that require a lot of energy and not a lot of directedness.  The first time the teacher lets them actually do magic in Defense class is a revelation for Stiles, because one thing he doesn’t have to wrangle his magic into is protecting him.  Two of the desks in the classroom are unsalvageable, and Stiles is left drained and stunned.

In spite of the rumors that go around after that, the idea that Stiles is  _dangerous_  is ridiculous to Derek.  Stiles is the boy who gets excited when he learns he can use glamours to make his dick look bigger and then realizes he’s hopeless at glamours, because he doesn’t know how to be anything he isn’t.  He’s the boy whose only consistently intentional, reliable small spell is one that allows him to write notes to Scott directly on Scott’s notebook and wipe them clean when the teacher comes close.  He’s the boy Scott patiently coaches through getting rid of excess magic by teaching him to juggle lacrosse balls with no hands, because if Stiles doesn’t let it out in small doses, it makes his ADHD unbearable.

Derek can’t fathom what magic like that would feel like, but he can at least make logical sense of it.

Scott, on the other hand, is harder to pin down, and not just because he has less magic.  Everyone says it took ages to sort Scott, because just based on his magic, it didn’t work.  Scott’s magic doesn’t take after Nurse McCall’s, who was in Remington, the spring house, when she was at SAS.  Her magic is tied up mostly in her healing endowment, and her personality fit in there perfectly, as well.  But as compassionate and caring as Scott is, the sorting hat didn’t take him in that direction.  It didn’t take him in the direction of Meriwether, either, though Scott is nothing if not hardworking and diligent; as far as Derek can tell, Scott wants to work with animals not because of any particular magical gift for them, but because it’s what makes him happy.

Nothing about Scott’s magic indicates that he should be a Burkenshire.  But the more Derek gets to know him, the more it makes sense; Scott has a quiet, unwavering set of morals.  Derek doesn’t know anyone in Scott’s American Nonmagical Culture class who questions his sorting, even though it might not make sense magically.  But it does leave Derek with no direction in terms of figuring things out.

So Derek watches.  He watches the quiet, subtle ways Scott uses his magic, never pulling it out just for convenience.  Scott uses it more for others than he does himself, because his mom raised him with the idea that magic should bring happiness and should make the world a better place, instead of being used purely for self-gain.  It’s a traditional view, tracing back to the days of blood magic, but it suits Scott.

Stiles and Scott’s magic balance each other out.  Scott’s told Derek before how he sometimes has to actively look for his magic, that it’s there inside him, cautious and patient, but he has to actively decide to use it.  It’s why the more academic magical subjects and the nonmagical subjects come easily to him, classes like arithmancy and magizoology, biology and chemistry.  It’s the perfect counterpoint to Stiles’ magic, subdued and controlled.

Derek knows that his boyfriends’ magic is nothing like his, but it doesn’t help him figure out how to describe his, like he hoped it would.  He thinks about it and struggles with it for ages until Scott finally puts it in a way that makes sense to him.

“When it comes to magic, Stiles is heart,” Scott says, “because his magic is based on what he feels.  And I’m head, because a lot of my magic is with stuff I can learn.  You’re hands.”

Derek doesn’t know that he would describe their relationship that way, in terms of personality; he would pin Scott more as the heart of the three of them, because he’s patient and loving and giving.  Stiles is head, without a doubt, because that’s where he locks himself up, stressing and overthinking and planning.  It fits with Stiles being an Eberhardt.

But Derek is hands, with the three of them and with his magic.  He’s a warm hug when Stiles is feeling homesick but Derek can’t string the words together to explain how deeply he understands, because Derek at least has Laura and Cora both around.  He’s an awed kiss when Scott does something truly remarkable, something that goes underappreciated because it’s not flashy.

To Derek, his magic is a muscle he exercises, that’s always there but that he isn’t aware of unless he’s using it.  It’s settled under his skin, and it comes out best when the magic is tied to his body, when it’s tactile and he can feel the press of it in his hands.  His potions always turn out better than the rest of the class’ because bits of magic slip from his hands as he carefully chops and crushes his ingredients.  Herbology is one of his favorite classes, because, with the exception of some plants that are definitely not fond of being touched, it’s all about working the earth with his hands.  

They aren’t to the point yet where they’re allowed to learn any biological magic, because it’s so easy for it to go wrong, and they’re only first years, but Derek is eagerly awaiting it.  He knows in his bones that it’s something he’s interested in, and, most likely, something he’ll be good at it.

It settles Derek, knowing that even his magic slots into place with the other two.  Scott and Stiles fit together so seamlessly, so flawlessly, sometimes, that he gets anxious about whether they would be better off without him.  But then moments like this happen, when he has clarity.  Scott drags him back, or Stiles calls him out, and it calms his worries.  

He does fit with Scott and Stiles; maybe not always seamlessly, but at least comfortably.  He’s hands, and he belongs after all.

**Author's Note:**

> On tumblr [here](sleepy-skittles.tumblr.com)!


End file.
